GDC: Meier's "golden age" of gaming

Firaxis supremo Sid Meier admitted at the Game Developers Conference on Wednesday that he believes the industry is in the midst of a "golden age" of gaming - but that his workload doesn't allow him to play other strategy games.

Firaxis supremo and game design legend Sid Meier admitted at
the Game Developers Conference on Wednesday that he believes
the industry is in the midst of a "golden age" of gaming -
but that his workload doesn't allow him to play other
strategy games.

In a Q&A session in front of a packed room, Meier also
revealed that he hadn't played Portal yet, and when asked
about his favourite rival strategy games, Meier said that he
didn't play them - because strategy games were something he
did "all day", and he didn't really feel like playing more of
them when he got home.

Partly it's also down to ongoing work on finishing
Civilization Revolution for consoles before he can get stuck
into his "pile of games," he said apologetically.

However, he also suggested that storytelling in games is a
bit self-indulgent and that this explains why he tends to
create sandboxes for people instead.

"There's the temptation for the designer to have too much fun
and not leave enough for the player," he said. He likes to
"keep the designer in the background".

Meier also made the recommendation to aspiring game designers
to learn to program, because it "gives you a lot of power and
creativity" while he admitted that he's not planning on
developing any casual titles.

"I'm not that interested in doing simple games. I like
complicated games!" he said, to much amusement.

Sid Meier, responsible for some of the industry's iconic
games over time such as Pirates and Railroad Tycoon, is
currently working on Civilization Revolution, which will
bring his massively popular strategy franchise to consoles.

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